| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: Mountain's story, as it was laid before Sir William Johnson and my
lord, was shorn, of course, of all the earlier particulars, and the
expedition described to have proceeded uneventfully, until the
Master sickened. But the latter part was very forcibly related,
the speaker visibly thrilling to his recollections; and our then
situation, on the fringe of the same desert, and the private
interests of each, gave him an audience prepared to share in his
emotions. For Mountain's intelligence not only changed the world
for my Lord Durrisdeer, but materially affected the designs of Sir
William Johnson.
These I find I must lay more at length before the reader. Word had
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: paddles. I was much delighted, as it promptly offered
me the escape I had been craving.
I pushed it out into water that would float it, stepped
in and called to Raja to enter. At first he did not seem
to understand what I wished of him, but after I had
paddled out a few yards he plunged through the surf
and swam after me. When he had come alongside I
grasped the scruff of his neck, and after a considerable
struggle, in which I several times came near to over-
turning the canoe, I managed to drag him aboard,
where he shook himself vigorously and squatted down
Pellucidar |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: Now Karen was old enough to be confirmed; she had new clothes and was to have
new shoes also. The rich shoemaker in the city took the measure of her little
foot. This took place at his house, in his room; where stood large
glass-cases, filled with elegant shoes and brilliant boots. All this looked
charming, but the old lady could not see well, and so had no pleasure in them.
In the midst of the shoes stood a pair of red ones, just like those the
princess had worn. How beautiful they were! The shoemaker said also they had
been made for the child of a count, but had not fitted.
"That must be patent leather!" said the old lady. "They shine so!"
"Yes, they shine!" said Karen, and they fitted, and were bought, but the old
lady knew nothing about their being red, else she would never have allowed
Fairy Tales |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: Such had been, up to the year 1809, the general course of this
household, which had nothing in common with the ordinary run of
conventional ideas, though the outward life of these two persons,
secretly full of love and joy, was like that of other people.
Balthazar Claes's passion for his wife, which she had known how to
perpetuate, seemed, to use his own expression, to spend its inborn
vigor and fidelity on the cultivation of happiness, which was far
better than the cultivation of tulips (though to that he had always
had a leaning), and dispensed him from the duty of following a mania
like his ancestors.
At the close of this year, the mind and the manners of Balthazar Claes
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